How Knowing Your Audience Leads to More Sales

You’re a professional. You know your product or service inside out. Right?

But how well do you know the people you sell to? Their deepest fears, desires, hopes, and dreams?

Do you know the emotional reasons they buy? Do you know what they actually buy?

A couple of classic marketing quotes will help illustrate my point:

Elmer Wheeler, a marketing pioneer of the early 20th century, said; “Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.”

And Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt said; “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

In other words, people don’t buy your product or service. They buy the results. And they buy those results for emotional reasons.

Before you can talk about the results you provide; you have to know what your customers really want.

Why is it important to know your audience?

You have to know your audience to create effective marketing.

Messaging that sells takes advantage of deep desires people already have. It gives them what they already want. It does not try to create desire or convince them to buy something they don’t want.

You have to know your audience on an emotional level. You have to know their deep desires to create that kind of messaging.

When you know your audience:

• They feel like you understand them at an emotional level
• They take interest in what you have to say
• They’ll trust you and be more likely to like, follow, or subscribe

What does knowing your audience look like?

Perry Marshall says to enter the conversation already going on in your customers’ heads.

When you know your audience you can:

• Speak directly to their problems
• Use the same words and phrases they think about in their heads
• State their problems, challenges, and desires so clearly that they feel like you’re reading their mind
• Offer solutions that appeal to them in an emotional way

What problems are they having? What solutions can you provide?

Don’t just tell them what solution you provide; be specific. Try to create a picture in their minds.

Don’t just tell them you can help them lose weight; tell them about how they’ll feel every morning when they step on the scale and see the number going down. About how they’ll feel when they see a slimmer, healthier version of themselves in the mirror.

Don’t just tell them you can save them time; tell them about all the emails they won’t have to send. About all the meetings they won’t have to attend.

What are the benefits of knowing your audience?

Messaging that actually works! That turns into sales.

Instead of people coming to your website, seeing nothing interesting, and leaving; you’ll capture their attention.

Your customers will feel like you’re talking to them-not a generic marketing persona or a vague idea of who you think they are-but them personally. Because you’re entering the conversation already going on in their heads; they’ll feel like you understand them, and be more likely to sit up and listen.

You’ll be able to create website content that matches the words and phrases your customers are typing into search engines.

Messaging that powerful, that makes people feel like you know them, leads them to take interest.

And that leads to more sales.

Originally published at https://thefrontera.agency on March 25, 2022.